Amilla Fushi, Maldives: spa review

How happy-making to hear that the disco lunge is the best whole-body exercise move you can do – all those years on the dancefloor are not lost. This fitness nugget is according to the personal trainers of cult West London gym Bodyism. And it is passed on, not in a nightclub but in the glass-walled studio at Amilla Fushi, with peacock-blue Indian Ocean rollers breaking outside.

Amilla Fushi

Bodyism has a permanent studio, café and wellness treehouses at Amilla, where guests can book in for a mini-retreat, staying in timber-clad hideaways in the jungle canopy. The focus of the sessions, which involve a series of floor exercises and squats peppered with gruelling planks, is to aim for perfect posture. The encouraging technique comes down to gently working on being relentlessly positive, and the experience can be as hardcore or mellow as you choose. Come for a week, with two sessions per day, and you will tone, strengthen and elongate limbs as well as build up your core muscles – results are thrillingly visible.

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What makes this retreat really sing are the supporting sessions and treatments. Pilates-based classes and ashtanga yoga with white-robed Kelzang Dorji from Bhutan complement the programme, and to wind down there are brilliant massages in the treatment rooms hidden among the palms (go for the jet-lag reliever to work out knots you never knew you had).

Amilla Fushi

Daniel Ward

The beauty of Amilla, apart from its location in the spectacular, every-shade-of-turquoise Baa Atoll, is its barefoot-bling balance. The service of the smartest hotel is delivered seamlessly with a no-rush, no-worries attitude. There are bikes to zip around on to discover the giant, gnarling banyan trees and orchid gardens of the island’s interior, and snorkel gear is yours for your stay. Get straight into the sea from the deck of your villa or explore the house reef’s blue hole, a coral-lined underwater chimney that’s home to turtles and triggerfish. And the rich marine life is visible even without goggles.

Spot rays and baby sharks swimming in the shallows on the walk to breakfast, when you’ll need willpower to resist the syrup- and chocolate-glazed pastries and opt instead for gluten-free bread and açai bowls with granola and fruit. And those trying to be virtuous don’t have to stick to the Wellness Café all week. The menus have little Clean & Lean symbols to guide you; grab a salad lunch at the Emperor Beach Club (manager Ahmed Nashid will guide you through the avocado station) and for supper feast on snapper and tuna sashimi at the candle-lit Japanese restaurant Feeling Koi.

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Amilla Fushi beach

Dean Bentick

At the end of the day it’s back to your huge all-white wooden villa: leave the curtains open to be woken for early-morning yoga by the fuzzy-peach-dawn sky, perhaps remembering that the last time you saw the sunrise at this hour was when you left that dancefloor.

INSIDER TIP

Order a take-away picnic before you leave so you don’t have to undo all the good work with reheated plane food on the flight home.